A Man Made of Clay Maraverse
by Reichenbach
Summary: Bruce is trying to help Sammy find the escaped Bizzaro, Mara returns to Gotham, and Dick and Tim don't know what to make of any of it. Sorry so long between stories!
1. Chapter 1

Standard disclaimers apply. Sorry for being SO LONG between parts. If you need to (and I don't blame you if you do) go back and reread Fireflies or What're Partners For (or all of freakin' Maraverse) to remember what the heck was going on. Or if you've given up on this fic, that's OK too, I guess, I don't blame you. I've been "that guy" with all the Abandonfic for a while.

Anyways… a short summary reminder for those who have forgotten:

Bruce was dead, but came back to life and decided he didn't want to stay dead because it was boring. Tim's Batman, he and Cassandra are married, his daughter Sammy came across a Green Lantern ring when Jordy (Kyle Rayner's offspring) died. Mara (Dick and Babs offspring) and her own ring-protected offspring have been in exile from Gotham while she deals with the fact that her brother killed her husband in an effort to keep the world from being destroyed. In other words: situation normal.  
XYZ

A Man Made of Clay

XYZ

The first night that she was back, she'd seen multiple shadows pass the windows of her apartment. Twice, a large figure landed on the balcony and moved back and forth in hesitation, but no one disturbed her. Either her grandfather Jim had ratted her out, or her family had come by the information of the prodigal child's return via the usual routs. She didn't know. She didn't care.

After stopping to see her grandfather, she drove about an hour north, to a cinderblock house on a large stretch of land, largely unkempt and unmowed. Her nephews were being holy terrors on the deck when she walked up the graying, untreated wood steps. It wasn't anything dangerous—well, as dangerous as slap-tag was. When she opened the screen door, she saw her brother on the sun porch, sitting in a molded plastic chair, staring out through the screen window, probably not seeing anything at all.

"I don't blame you," she said quietly, not daring to cross the distance between them. It had come out of her the moment she saw his scraggly beard and his uncut hair, and the thin lines along his neck. Beneath the baggy clothes, a lot of his bulk was gone. He looked like someone she almost didn't recognize.

Did she blame him? She didn't know. She blamed enough people. The Justice League, the universe… But her brother? Not that he didn't deserve it, if she did. But when she tried to conjure up some small emotion regarding her brother, who'd thought he was better than everyone else, not to mention smarter and superior at those sort of games that even Bruce had lost once in a while, or even this slumped, worn figure before her…nothing came to mind.

"Jimmy…" she started again.

She had no idea what she would have said though. Kristen came to the door a moment after that, drying her hands with a dishtowel. The woman was still tall and beautiful—intimidating so. But she'd put on a few of the pounds Jimmy had shed. Of course that hadn't done anything to soften the look of her face, with the narrow nose and the sharp angles of her clenched jaw. "Leave him alone."

The sun porch dropped a few degrees and the other woman's grip on the stiffening dishtowel tightened. She didn't need the tight costume—Kristen was intimidating in faded jeans and a short-sleeve sweater.

"I just want to--" But Mara didn't know why she was here. "Never mind." She looked back to her brother. He was still looking out the window. "That's all he does." It might have been a question. It might have been a statement. She didn't know.

Kristen stepped onto the sun porch, presumably to defend her husband. "On his bad days."

Something caught in her chest then. Somehow, Jimmy having good days, or normal days and occasionally being reduced to this was somehow worse than this being his status quo.

Kristen put her hand on her husband's shoulder. "Just go."

Swallowing, Mara backed up. Some situations could never be repaired. She'd been an idiot for coming back here and even trying. Bruce was an idiot if he thought anything could get better by her doing this. "I'm…" And again… the words wouldn't come. She couldn't bring herself to apologize. "You should put shoes on those boys if you're not going to stain the deck. They're going to get splinters in their feet."  
Somehow, with that, she had the strength to leave.

She got into her car and backed down the gravel driveway, wondering what was wrong with her, and dreading a repeat incident with the rest of her family.

And that had been her first day home. Which was why she was grateful to the universe and any powers that happened to be that the shadows eventually moved on their way.

Her business that evening had been difficult to make any actual headway on. She was trying to figure out what Bruce was up to, without alerting him, or her mother. It meant all the usual avenues were out, and by the time she stopped her searching at about three in the morning, she was brain dead enough to almost turn in at a normal hour.

Instead, though, she went into JB's room and watched him sleep by the glow of his own aura. Sometimes, she wondered if he was really a soft minty green, like his father had been, or if that was just the Green Lantern energy that surrounded him constantly.

What had Bruce meant, a few days ago, when he'd said to raise JB like any other child? Any other child in their family, or any other child in the universe? The way her parents had—always pushing her in private mentally and physically, and then forcing her to act normal in public? Or like Bruce had? Had Bruce ever actually raised children? Oh sure, they grew up in his presence, and he mentored them, but would everyone in Gotham be nearly as dysfunctional (or effective) without his special brand of "parenting?"

Come to think of it, what in the hell did Bruce know about parenting?

Stroking JB's silky fine hair, she frowned. Come to think of it, when had he become just Bruce in her mind? He'd always been the Bat. Even when she'd called him grandpa, she'd been thinking Bat. But now, physically, he was only a few years older than her, and he sure as hell wasn't Batman any more.

There was no order in the universe.

XYZ

Sitting down at the table with a large bowl of cereal, Tim took the spoon "Should I be bothered that I don't know where my eight year old is, and at this moment, I don't care?"

Dick suspected that Tim did care. But if Tim thought about it too much, his head would explode. There was the massive amount of property damage caused a few days ago by…whatever Sammy had done in the crawlspace beneath the roof, not to mention the girl's frequent comings and goings. She was always dirty when she came back, and she never said where she'd been—which was especially bad considering the girl was still grounded.

"Let's see, she's up to something—probably in over her head. And I can't track her. I can't follow her. /I/ can't follow her. What does that leave me with?" Not waiting for an answer, Tim began devouring the bowl as if he were still sixteen and possessing a hyper-fast metabolism.

Dick though he was probably good for it though—Tim had been pulling a lot of double-duty with the JLA and the normal Gotham mayhem. Sometimes, food was a substitute for sleep.

Looking down at his cup of coffee, Dick tried to think of something intelligent to say. It wasn't as if he had been the most brilliant father. "Well, at least she's not in danger." The ring was perfectly capable of alerting them when the girl was so far in trouble that she needed bailing out, or if she left Earth's orbit without permission.

Which left them with some questions about the ring. It seemed to have a mind of its own. It never alerted them when she was just doing something she wasn't supposed to—it waited till she was in danger. And for some reason, the tiny treble voice on the other end of phone calls that 'anonymously' tipped them off to dangerous behavior always sounded a little bit like Alfred. Maybe it was just the accent. Or not

Tim pointed the spoon at his friend. "That's just the thing, isn't it? That ring. That ring is causing way more problems than its solving."

"We can always cut off the finger, remove the ring, and reattach. Or sever the finger on both ends of the ring." Dick grinned.

Sighing, Tim went back to his food. "You're really morbid, man. You know that?"

Dick shrugged. "Been a long couple of years. And if getting her to take that ring off gets you to shut up, I'll do it by any means possible."

The younger of the two chose to ignore the last statement. "Heard from Mara yet?"

"No. You?"

"No."

Well, that made Dick feel a little better. Dick figured Tim would be one of the first people she'd make contact with. "I was standing out on her balcony last night, and just…"

"Yeah, man. Me too."

XYZ

Bruce had no idea what the hell to say to the smoke and soot covered girl when he handed her the light-filled mayonnaise jar. Something like "good job," was about to come out, but she let out small moan that quickly turned into a sob.

A sigh escaped him when the girl wrapped her arm around his leg and held on for dear life. He rested a hand on her head. "Thank you," he said gently. "You've done something I couldn't do."

"I… I couldn't get it back into the Bizzaro. He wouldn't stay still long enough, and the firefly wouldn't go."

Letting out a deep breath, he pulled away from her. "What was your mission?"

Sammy's head, which had been lowered in dejection, slowly raised up until she was looking at him in the eye. "To—to get the last firefly."

Bruce nodded sternly, acknowledging the tiny green mass of energy that Sammy had nicknamed a 'firefly,' as it bounced around inside the jar. "And you completed that mission. Let me worry about how to get it into the Bizzaro."

Exhausted, the tiny girl in the Green Lantern uniform plunked herself down on the cement floor of basement they were using as a workspace. It wasn't the Batcave, and was almost claustrophobic with its low ceiling, but it had what he needed, and it was off the radar enough that he wouldn't get noticed in this city that held the single largest concentration of people he didn't want to run into or see.

Samantha Drake slumped where she was sitting, her exhaustion and frustration getting the better of her. "I was so close. I just wanted to…"

"It wasn't your mission," he told her firmly. "Let me deal with it." There was something else he was supposed to be saying or doing here, he could tell by her disappointment. All the rest of them would simply have accepted his word as law at this age. Dick most of all. But…it didn't work with this one. "WE will figure this out."

And that was it. That was all it took to return a hopeful smile to her sooty face.

A smile like that was a dangerous thing; no wonder Tim wouldn't work with her. He was already in over his head. "And when this is over… we'll see about getting you some proper training."

The weird part was that Bruce could be so objective about being so obviously off his rocker.

"How're we gunna find him again?" Sammy asked suddenly, some small bit of enthusiasm returning to her exhausted form.

Smiling, Bruce walked over to the small laptop hooked up to the very large monitor in the furthest corner of the dry, dusty basement. "You might not have succeeded with the Bizzaro, but you brought back some valuable intel."

And just like that, her eyes glazed over. Having a ring meant being like her family. She had no idea what it truly meant, and she certainly hadn't been given any real-world (or THEIR real-world) applicable skills.

Setting the jar on the counter, he began scanning it with a small hand-held device. "Intelligence, Samantha. The clay man chased you, when you were getting too close to the last energy mass--" she was still blank. "Firefly. When you got too close to the last firefly. We have two more pieces of information than we had before today. First, it can sense the remaining 'firefly,' and second…"

Realization dawned on the girl. "And it doesn't want to get made right. It wants ta stop us."

Bruce nodded. "Very good. Now we find out what, exactly, is repelling or attracting in this equation, and we can go to the clay man, instead of waiting for him to come to us." Without a word, he handed her a white cloth handkerchief from his pocket.

She began rubbing at her face, which was coming marginally clean from just that small effort. "And then… we get Jordy back?"

Turning back to his work, Bruce didn't answer. It was too soon to tell.

TBC…


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to charlene for the beta. She beta'd it weeks ago and I didn't get around  
to posting:) Nothing like a deadline for inspiration!

XYZ

Sitting in the main room of her suite, Mara leaned over the laptop, trying to  
track the information before it disappeared from cyberspace.

There were reports of some creature doing some rather strange damage in various  
parts of the world. Nothing major, but what drew Mara's attention was how the  
Justice League's focus was being diverted from the reports. It was subtle and  
artful—no one would notice; if they weren't specifically looking for something  
with Bruce's footprint all over it.

She'd been looking for any signs of Sammy, figuring that the littlest Green  
Lantern had to be in league with the former Bat, and it had lead her straight  
to the elegant game of subterfuge. And she was absolutely certain she was on the  
right track when a message popped up reminding her not to be petulant as another  
news report vanished from the internet.

Something was happening and it was big—and she wasn't invited. That much was  
evident when there was a knock at her front door. When Mara found her mother on  
the other side, saying she got her daughter's e- mail, requesting her to come,  
she knew she'd hit gold—Bruce was trying to distract her. There was just one  
little problem. How did she get rid of her mother?

"So when do I get to see the little guy?" Barbara asked.

It took Mara a few moments to catch up. "What? Oh. When he wakes up from his  
nap. Epic badness happens if you wake him before he's ready."

"Can I look in on him? I haven't even seen him yet."

What Mara's mother meant was that she hadn't even gotten so much as a hit off  
of a security camera of JB. There was a reason for that—one of Matrix's jobs  
was to let off a low level frequency that scrambled electronic recording  
devices whenever Mara took the baby out and about. She figured it was easier  
to keep JB off the radar than to deal with the curiosity of the press, the  
so-called press, Oracle and every other heroing organization that could use a  
Green Lantern battery-operated-baby for their own ends. It just made life a  
little safer and a little more anonymous.

"If you open that door, and he doesn't recognize you, he'll start howling like a  
creature from hell." He did it with everybody—the cleaning staff, strangers…  
well, except for Bruce. JB'd been suddenly calm and attentive when Bruce had  
been talking to him.

Mara was still going for the child hypnotism theory. Maybe it was Bruce's  
meta-power.

She wondered what the hell he and Sammy were up to. Why was he cutting her out?  
Hell, he'd been cutting her out since before he'd teamed up with the tiniest and  
most incorrigible member of the Green Lantern Corps. This latest turn wasn't  
new.

Was he done with her? Moving on with a new sidekick?

And why couldn't he just tell everyone he was alive? Would that be so  
magnificently difficult for him?

Her mother touching her hand startled her. "You invite me over here, and then  
you are someplace else. What're you thinking about?"

Mara sighed and rubbed her forehead, coming back from her thoughts. "That I  
never noticed how much of an insufferable ass Bruce was, until now. I swear; he  
used to let me get away with stuff just to piss dad off."  
Barbara smiled into her coffee. "My baby has grown up. Time was, the sun rose  
and set beneath his feet."  
Shaking her head, Mara wondered what she'd do now. Wandering was over. At least  
when she was doing that, she was Nobody. Now, back in Gotham, with a family to  
fit into, she wasn't sure who she'd be. "I've changed my mind. He's a total  
bastard."  
Mara forgot to breathe for a moment, after she realized she'd referred to Bruce  
in the present tense. But then her mother pushed her empty mug forward to be  
refilled. Biting her cheek, Mara took the mug and walked over to the coffee pot.  
Everyone in her family was a hopeless addict; it came from the late nights.

Handing the mug back, she sat back down, wondering if her mother had just missed  
the tense-change, or if Oracle was holding on to it as ammunition in a future  
battle. One never knew with her family. They'd all learned from the best, and  
the best was a total bastard at playing games with family and friends.

Barbara took a sip. "Well, what brought this on?"

Mara shrugged. "Dunno. Just… thinking. I don't know. Coming back's put some  
stuff in perspective."

"Such as?"

Yeah. Her mother was up to something. Or thought that she was. Did it matter,  
either way? "Oh I don't know. Just… things. I start thinking about all the  
time I spent at his house when I was little. A game was never a game—it was  
training. And anything he said was never at face value… Can I blame him for  
being messed up?"

"No."

"Dad does."

Barbara smiled at her daughter. "Has it helped him any? We all knew what we  
were getting into. And your father damned well knew what he was getting into by  
letting you stay over there. He could have put the breaks on it at any moment,  
but it was easier to let you two have your way. And trust me—it was both of  
you."

Mara's mom had always seemed to have a clearer head when it came to Bruce than  
her dad did. And this new bit of perspective seemed to be somewhat reminiscent  
of her grandfather Jim's philosophical view toward Bruce's lifestyle and  
behavior.

It didn't mean she trusted her mother. "Yeah. I guess it was. I wasn't happy  
unless I was up to my neck in trouble." Still was true. But at least in Gotham,  
she had an audience of family members to impress with her antics.  
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Sliding it out, she glanced at the  
number—surprised to see her brother come up on the caller ID. It took an  
enormous amount of self-control not to answer it right then and there, not  
tipping her mother off be damned.

Fortunately her mother looked away, and at least made it seem like she was  
trying to afford some privacy. Chances were, her mother would be on it about  
thirty second after leaving anyway.

Yes, there was something going on. And it was epic.

XYZ

"I think this isn't going to work," Sammy whispered into her communicator. She  
was in, like, space, but she kept a bubble of green ring energy around her so  
she could breath and talk and stuff.

"It'll be fine," a steady voice instructed back. "Just connect the wires just  
like we practiced."

Sammy twisted the wires around the little screw thingy and tightened it down.  
They'd practiced it like six times already. She hadta do this while Old Batman  
was doing things on the computer, so they could make it work on the right  
frequency or whatever. She thought luring the clay man to Gotham was a really  
bad idea. "I think everything's gunna go very very wrong."

Old Batman sighed in her ear. "Lantern, just do it."

Connecting the last bits and bobs together (she really had no idea what the  
device was, or what it did), she closed the hatch on the side of the satellite,  
and then sealed the plate back into place. "If it goes wrong, can I say I  
toldja so?"

"Yes. Now move on to the next one."

Sammy flew off toward the next satellite. "Wonder what Peaches is doin' right  
about now."

XYZ

The baby finally woke up and Barbara had flocked to the bedroom immediately to  
play with JB. Mara was thankful for it, too. Her mother had taken to  
reminiscing over times that seemed so laughable and innocuous now, but had been  
hell on earth when she'd been living them. No, it was NOT funny just how dad had  
flipped his lid when she'd finally moved out.

Well, it had been kinda funny when Bruce had flipped out. In that way that Bruce  
flipped out. He'd let out a long, drawn-out sigh, and could say more with that  
sigh than one of her father's entire tirades.

There'd been that whole odd weekend where she'd ended up first in Vagas, then  
married to Jordy by a minister in a funny costume. Bruce had been gone by then,  
but she'd imagined that Bruce would have sighed, or given her `that look.' The  
one that let her know he was so especially not pleased, and all parties involved  
should consider themselves on notice.

Frowning, Mara dumped the remainder of her cold coffee into the sink. She  
wondered if Sammy was the recipient of those frowns and sighs now.

It was entirely possible—Sammy was as frustrating as anything. Even the Justice  
League hadn't managed to fully contain her, or her friend Peaches. Keeping up  
with the girl was, really, a full-time job. The girl, in her current  
over-powered state, would have given Alfred a run for his money, and Alfred had  
kept track of some unruly people in his day.

Putting the cup on the side of the sink, she tried not to smile. Bruce had  
nothing BUT time now. In that sense, those two deserved each other.

What in the hell was Bruce up to? And how soon could she get rid of her mother,  
to go find out?

Just as the thought of pulling the building's fire alarm crossed her mind, her  
phone buzzed in her pocket. Pulling it out, she frowned, suddenly a little bit  
worried at the familiar number on the caller ID.

"Something's happening with the JLA satellites."

She turned away from the bedroom, where JB's green light was streaming through  
the cracked door. "Jimmy?"

"Krys thinks I'm checking my email. But I built those satellites. I still get  
alerts when they don't follow their routines." There was something weak and  
thready in his voice, but it was clear and coherent.

Mara grabbed her jacket. "Why're you calling me, and not dad, or Tim?"

"You were here yesterday, right?"

"Yeah." Before your deranged wife threw me out, she wanted to add, but knew it  
wouldn't do any good. Whatever Jimmy was going through… he didn't need any added  
issues heaped on top of that. "For a couple of minutes."

"Its Sammy, I think. Sammy and someone else. She works with Darkseid sometimes,  
which can't be good. But this is different…" his voice grew distant again, and  
she knew whatever he was saying made perfect sense in his head, even if it  
didn't make sense to her. .

She couldn't necessarily say he was a few steps ahead of her—just on a totally  
different plane of inquiry. "I'll look into it." Zipping up the leather coat,  
she gestured for Matrix to make some excuse to her mother, and then quietly  
slipped out of the apartment. There was a long silence, and Mara wondered if  
her brother had gone back to the vacant, solitudal fellow she'd seen yesterday.  
"Jimmy, thanks. I know things're rough right now but--"

"Don't call here," Kristen informed her, then hung up.

The woman was still an insufferable bitch—nothing had changed there, it was nice  
to see. But Mara was willing to let it pass, just this once, since Kristen was  
just trying to protect him. It was an urge Mara herself had developed only in  
recent history, but it was a strong one. Even if Jimmy had been responsible for…

Well, thinking about that wasn't going to do anything for her.

Knowing she was probably asking for trouble (not to mention company), Mara  
headed for the roof. Her father or Tim could find her this way, but it would get  
her where she was going faster. She knew what Bruce was up to but she didn't  
quite understand why. She also knew there was only one place he could be working  
from. If she went on foot, her mother would trace her almost  
immediately—street-level traffic left a technological trail that her mother  
could follow from a PDA, she didn't even need a computer to do her dirty work.

xyz

"Something bad's gunna happen…" Sammy muttered under her breath again. She'd  
been doing this for an hour.

Bruce tried to ignore the girl. He just continued typing activation codes to  
gain control of the satellites. There wasn't really anything he COULD say to her  
anyway. He'd already read her the riot act on keeping her mind on her task, but  
the girl was worried.

He wouldn't bother spending the time it would take to confirm for her that yes,  
there were a thousand ways this could go wrong. He suspected one of those ways  
that this could go wrong to erupt in about ten minutes on his doorstep. He  
wasn't entirely sure what he'd tell Mara when she arrived. Maybe even the truth.  
But he didn't have very long to think of something—whatever he was planning.

This had been so much easier a lifetime ago. He'd been young enough to be stupid  
enough to think that taking in Dick was a good idea. He could barely match his  
own socks without Alfred's help, but he was going to raise a small boy. He'd  
been young enough to think it was fun, in its own sort of way. What the hell did  
he know, after all? And his entire set of qualifications? He'd read a parenting  
book the weekend before the custody hearing. Everything's easy when you're  
twenty-three and stupid, before the sense of your own mortality sets in, and you  
wake up and find yourself to be twenty-five and in charge of a ten year old.  
Then suddenly you're thirty-three and sending them off to college.

He hadn't done that badly, had he? Sure they all had their neurotic streaks and  
accompanying life-dramas, but for the most part, they were whole, stable people.  
Jimmy aside. But Bruce took full responsibility for that one. Even Mara was  
moving on, in her own way.

It's why he'd sicced her mother on her—he was hoping to keep the girl (no, she  
was a young woman, he had to remind himself) away from all of this. But she was  
persistent. And Jimmy was tracking the satellites. For all their disdain for  
each other, they'd become as thick as thieves the last few years since his  
death.

See? Bruce told himself—he really WASN'T needed. He'd clean up this mess, then  
fade back into obscurity again. He was redundant.

"Something bad's gonna happen…" Now Sammy was starting to get sing-songy with  
it.

Bruce typed two more commands. "Green Lantern, do I have to tell you again about  
negative thinking and your power ring?"

The girl sighed in his ear. "No. The ring does what I believe it can do, so I  
can't go bein' a Negative-Nancy all the time."

Despite himself, Bruce smiled. He did like the small ones better—they were more  
amusing, even when they were angsty. Dick and Tim's late teens had almost given  
him an apoplexy. It was so much easier when they were portable and funny.

And if he had to admit it, even to just himself—he liked training the tiny ones  
better. Not just because their amusement potential was higher—they were far  
more malleable and picked things up like a sponge. He was certain Tim was coping  
horribly with the situation.

XYZ

Mara felt him before she saw him as she swung between the ravine created between  
the civic center and the history museum. She could tell due to the lack of cape  
noise that it was her father and not Tim.

He didn't say anything. Just flew beside her until they got to the top of the  
courthouse. Finally she had to stop and look at him. A whole year had gone by,  
and he was starting to look his age, if the creases around his mouth were any  
testimony. There were probably similar folds around his eyes, under the domino  
mask. His hair had an odd sheen to it, and she suspected he was covering over  
the first specks of grey. "Hi."

"Hi."

She wondered for a moment if she could get away with just leaping off the  
rooftop, but that idea went away quickly. He'd follow her. "So."

"What're you doing here, if your mom is at your place?"

Crap. And she thought this'd be a social call, and she could avoid getting  
grilled by virtue of her not having seen her family in ages.

Sadly, it wasn't to be. And she knew "business" was a possible outcome of this  
meeting, the minute she stepped onto the roof and left her mother and her son.  
"Just wanted to get out of there. She's being… smothering."

"It's good to see you." He put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulders in  
an informal, non-committal gesture. But she knew he was inspecting her just as  
thoroughly as she'd inspected him. "Your hair's growing out."

Thanks, Captain Obvious. "Easier to manage, with the baby in tow."

"No cape, either. See, I knew you'd wise up eventually." There was a weird,  
awkward silence. Mara was sure the last was supposed to be funny, but it had  
fallen flat. "So how is the little guy? Still… you know?"

"Glowing green? Yeah. Haven't quite figured out the relationship between the  
baby and the ring. Would be easier if…" If Jordy was around to ask. But that  
just wasn't how things were. It was odd—she'd been learning for the last year  
how to be ok without him, and it had been easier when she'd been away. Now that  
she was back, she was remembering all of the times they'd had together, and all  
the things she'd wanted to do with him, here in her home town. It was easier to  
be regretful of what had never been here. `I won't be staying in Gotham long."

Her father, thankfully, had no retort for that. "We'd all like to see you  
before you go, then."

That actually made her pause. She'd never really…had the umbilical cord cut  
with her family. They'd always be ordering her to do more with her family or do  
this that or the other thing. She looked over at her dad. "Well… thanks." That  
hadn't come out as confidently as she'd hoped, but it was right about then that  
she started wondering if it was some sort of trap, maybe to guilt her into  
staying in town.

"Mar—" He looked her over. Is there something we should be calling you now?"

She shook her head. "I'm Nobody, really." She was fresh out of codenames and  
other superhero BS.

He didn't have anything smart to say. He just nodded. "You're welcome to stay.  
But if you're moving on…"

Mara shrugged. "I don't know. Moving on has just been…easiest lately."

A new city every week was far easier to her constitution than sitting around,  
wondering what Jordy would have thought, about a long stretch of beach,  
especially since he'd always wanted to take a vacation and sit around with  
drinks with umbrellas. Or thinking of the million other things that ran through  
her head when she stayed still for too long. Granted she didn't have to worry  
about Bruce any more. The bastard had managed to cheat death. But Alfred… She  
missed Alfred. She missed Alfred, and she wished she'd paid more attention to  
his quiet wisdom when she'd had the chance.

Her dad's arm twitched, like he wanted to reach out and hug her, but he didn't.  
Well, she hadn't exactly been approachable in the last few years. She'd never  
given her family any indication it was ok. So she didn't hold it against him.  
"You do what you need to. What's BEST for you. And that little guy."

He didn't give her a chance to respond; Nightwing jumped off the roof, and she  
was alone.

Mara took off in another direction, only looking back for the first few blocks  
to be sure that she was alone. After that, she was too deep in thought. What  
did mean? She passed through the warehouse district, down near the docks, and  
found her way into the old subway system that didn't run through that part of  
town anymore, due to flooding. It was dark and damp, and the cold seeped into  
her boots in just a few minutes. But that system fed into the basement of a  
shambles of a building.

The foundation twisted around a collapsed section, but it fed into a damp, dark  
space that thrummed with electronics that shouldn't be there. Further in, a  
large dark figure was pointing to something on a monitor for a smaller shadow  
"Isn't Sammy supposed to be in bed by now?"

"Mara, I think you should just leave," Bruce said coolly.

"Why? You're busted, now. Why not just let me in on whatever you're doing with  
the JLA satellites?"

Before the last word was out of Mara's mouth, Sammy literally flew into her  
arms, which instinctively wrapped around the girl, like they'd never been apart.  
"Mara! You're here! Old Batman and I were working on a Secret Project, and I  
can't tell you what's goin' on, but it's really good! You just haveta—"

"Sammy." Bruce reprimanded. It wasn't the harsh voice he used ot use with Mara.  
There was a touch of humor in this. He really had mellowed. "And Mara, I mean  
it—get out of here. Now."

She put Sammy down, then took a few steps closer, folding her arms over her  
chest. "Why? What's been seen can't be unseen. You might as well just let--"

There was a sharp intake of breath behind her, and Mara turned, seeing Nightwing  
in the shadows at the edge of the collapsed wall.

"Because you lead your father right here." He sighed and sat down in the  
high-backed chair in front of the mishmash of computer monitors. "Well, you're  
both here now. Make yourselves useful and monitor those other screens."  
TBC…


End file.
